ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Two six-month-old Mexican gray wolf pups are navigating southwestern New Mexico’s Gila forest on their own now that their troubled pack has splintered, worrying environmentalists who think the animals’ chances of survival are slim.

This week’s efforts to track the Fox Mountain pack show the pups are miles apart and far from the pack’s alpha male. Environmentalists blame federal wildlife managers, who ordered the pack’s alpha female — the pups’ mother — captured and removed from the wild in response to a string of cattle kills.

The fate of the pack is fueling the latest wave of frustration over the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s handling of the 14-year effort to reintroduce wolves to the American Southwest. The frustration has taken the form of online petitions, public records requests and now a lawsuit.